‘How Stephen Hawking taught me about my career choices’ – the story of a business graduate sharing his approach to a career in research and academia

K. M. Saqiful Alam is a lecturer for Department of Management, School of Business, North South University. After completing his undergraduates from Institute of Business Administration (IBA), he finished his masters from Manchester Business School, and has been in the field of academia for over three years. Other than taking classes in risk management, operations management and applied statistics, he is also involved in training, taking sessions on supply chain and process mapping. In his recent visit to Podium, an event for the university students held at IBA, Dhaka University he inspired the audience to choose careers that are not traditionally glorified.

Podium is a free idea sharing platform for students where they can share their ideas freely and share their ideas to the world through YouTube and bring social change by creating awareness. Its mission is to create a platform where students will share their ideas, opinions, thoughts. Podium aspires to reach each educational institution of Bangladesh to ensure a common platform for students.

As one of the youngest lecturers at North South University, Mr Saqiful Alam shared his perceptive view about the career decision that often distresses the growing youth of the nation. The audience comprised undergrad students from various departments of Dhaka University who all face this dilemma growing up about what career field they want to progress into. He began his 10 minute speech by saying how the budding minds of today grow up with a biased mindset that is confined to the traditional career choices of working for an established company such as Citibank and Unilever which completely ignores any other kind of career choice that digresses from the traditional ones.

Referring to “A Brief History of Time” by Stephen Hawking, Mr Saqiful Alam explained how the universe is like an unblown balloon. “After putting two tiny dots on that balloon, if we blow the balloon up, the dots become larger and also they get separated from each other faster. In fact both the rates of growth and separation are exponential – very fast. Although this was a simplified model of explanation of the expansion of the universe after The Big Bang, it struck me as an excellent career model,” he explained to the young audience. Through this “Balloon model,” he explained that there exist various career choices that have not yet been explored but which have tremendous potential; what are basically the “tiny dots on an unblown balloon.” He discussed how the two career choices have different implications on individual career fields. The mainstream choices of having jobs at branded organizations which are in fact saturated have limited scope of further growth. Instead of such common career fields, graduates should instead explore new areas of business that have not yet been developed but which have enormous potential.

Citing Hawking’s example, Mr Saqiful explained how being a Business student he was fascinated by Astrophysics, a totally different field that had nothing to do with his area of studies. As a student of the Institute of Business Administration, Dhaka University, Mr Saqiful had majored in Finance and minored in Economics for his Undergrad studies. However, he had chosen Operations Management for his Masters which a completely different field. “Why? Because I had identified this field as one of those tiny dots that has huge potential to grow in this country. And who would have thought an Astrophysicist would actually end up being my career counselor! This experience of the “Balloon Model” taught me interesting insights – 1) Instead of a highly glamorized and established field to base your career in, a better idea will be to focus on an area which is not yet developed, which matches your strength, and which shows potential to grow; 2) A source of inspiration, a good model, or a solution to a problem can come from the most unexpected of the sources, only if you are determined to look for it, and keep a clear and open mind.”

Mr Saqiful concluded with an inspiring analogy: he hinted to the person blowing the balloon as the entrepreneur which was in fact the best career choice each person picks.